1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic music composing method for automatically composing background music for an input image. More specifically, the invention relates to an automatic music composing method and system for analyzing an input image and automatically composing music which matches the atmosphere of the input image and continues during the period while the image is displayed.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional method of generating background music for an image is, for example, "Automatic Background Music Generation based on Actors' Mood and Motion" described in The Journal of Visualization and Computer Animation, Vol. 5, pp. 247-264 (1994). According to this conventional technology, a user enters for each scene of a moving image of computer animation a mood type representative of the atmosphere of each scene and a reproduction time of each scene, and in accordance with the entered atmosphere and time, background music is generated and added to the moving image. In many cases, producers add background music to animation, movies, and the like by themselves. In this case, the atmosphere suitable for each scene and the time of each scene are usually predetermined during the production process. It is therefore easy to know the conditions to be supplied to a background music generating system.
However, in the case of a general moving image such as a video image photographed by a common user, which scene is photographed in how many seconds is not predetermined. In adding background music to video images (moving images) photographed by a common user by using the above-described conventional technology, the user must find the division positions of scenes after the video images are photographed and determine the background music generating conditions as to the reproduction time and atmosphere of each scene to supply the conditions to the system. It takes therefore a long time and requires a considerable amount of work.